Melania Following Barack Obama On Twitter Causes Controversy

By: Mackenzie Wright | June 27, 2019

First Lady Melania Trump has not been quite as heavy-handed with Twitter the way her husband, President Donald Trump, has been. It seems that Mrs. Trump usually prefers to keep to herself.

She only follows five people in total, and one of the people she follows is a little surprising. It's her husband's predecessor, Barack Obama. Some think the FLOTUS only follows Obama now to irritate her husband.

Melania barely knew Mr. Obama, only meeting with the Obamas on a couple of occasions. She even joined Donald Trump in criticizing the former president long before the election, so it didn’t look like she was much of a fan.

Melania seemed to be on the 'birther' conspiracy bandwagon with Trump, demanding Obama release his 'real' birth certificate.

"It’s not only Donald who wants to see [Obama’s birth certificate]. It’s American people who voted for him and who didn’t vote for him. They want to see that," she said in 2011 in an interview with Joy Behar.

Because of this, it’s pretty odd that she should elect to follow the former POTUS. The only other people Melania follows is her husband, both his public and private accounts, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence.

She doesn’t even follow any of her stepchildren, at least not on her official FLOTUS account.

No one is exactly sure when she started following Obama, but it seems to be a fairly recent addition. Some suspect that her motive may be to tick off Trump while their marriage is strained.

President Trump has always seemed intimidated by his predecessor's popularity. He has had his spokespeople argue that his audience for various events have been equal to, or bigger than, Obamas, even when by all sources it was simply not the case.

This crowd size inadequacy Trump seems to feel may hint at a much deeper insecurity. Melania seems to not be very happy with her husband as of late, so it wouldn't be surprising if she was trying to play on those insecurities.

Since news broke weeks ago that Trump's campaign team allegedly gave $130,000 to a porn star so she would remain silent about a decade-old affair, Melania has rarely been seen with her husband. Stormy Daniels told a magazine in an interview in 2011 that she had an affair with Trump just months after Melania gave birth to their son, Barron.

At the time, Trump was not a politician, so the magazine decided not to run the story.

After the news came out, the First Lady canceled a trip overseas she was supposed to take with the president. She wasn't seen with him again for weeks until the State of the Union Address. Even then, she showed up in a separate car and looked sad even as she clapped along with his supporters.

In another recent video clip of the POTUS and FLOTUS, he seems to be trying to take her hand. She swats it away. The last time she did that there were also rumors of a spat between the couple.

“It’s a lovely bit of husband-trolling that Melania Trump only follows five people and one of them is Barack Obama," said British novelist, Matt Haig, on Twitter.

Source: Newsweek, PeoplePhotos: Government of Florida/Wikimedia, The White House, YouTube